Santorum donations soar after wins

Rick Santorum rode the momentum from his Iowa caucus to pull in a $4.5 million fundraising haul last month, finishing January with $1.5 million in the bank, but also $957,000 in debt, according to a report filed Monday night with the Federal Election Commission.

According to his campaign, Santorum saw another spike in donations after he swept the contests this month in Minnesota, Missouri and Colorado, though that period is not covered in Monday’s report.

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Though his haul is less than the $6.5 million taken in by field leader Mitt Romney in January, or the $5.6 raised by Newt Gingrich, it equals Ron Paul’s haul.

And Santorum’s report gives a glimpse of a motivated small donor base that increasingly opened its wallets as the former Pennsylvania Senator surged.

In the week after Santorum won the Iowa caucus (though initial tallies showed him finishing a close second to Mitt Romney), Santorum raised $857,000 in itemized contributions – a figure that does not include donations of less than $200, which aren’t required to be listed.

In all, the report shows that Santorum raised $2.6 million from such small donations and only $852,000 from donors who gave $1,000 or more. Santorum’s biggest donors included the political action committees for ActRight and the Brickman Group, which gave $5,000 each.

The report also highlights potential problems, namely the campaign’s debt, which is dominated by $500,000 owed to the Pittsburgh firm of its media consultant John Brabender.

He told POLITICO that, since the beginning of February, which isn’t covered in the report, the campaign has had over 80,000 unique contributors.

“There wasn’t that type of intensity going on after Iowa,” he said.

Additionally, the campaign still owes Santorum $20,000, though he could convert that loan to a contribution if he wanted. There’s no limit on how much candidates can donate to their own campaigns.